"Would He Notice if I Stopped Shaving My Legs?"

Ever wonder, Would he really care if I totally stopped shaving my legs? Or totally started putting the moves on him? In the name of relationship research, we had real women make those changes and more. You won't believe what never showed up on his radar.

All for naught?

All for naught?

My husband, Luke, sometimes picks up on my feelings or finishes my sentences in a way that makes it feel like we share a brain. But he's also a guy. Which means that it took him five days to realize it when I decided to dye my reddish-brown hair a Jane Russell--style black that looked way more Goth on me than it did the model on the box. I stewed for days, thinking, Seriously? Are you not even concerned that your wife has morphed into Elvira?

Men failing to notice women's hair has become a cliché because it's often true. They also don't seem to register new shoes. And they really couldn't care less about how you decorate the house (in a recent poll of 2,000 women, 10 percent reported that their husbands hadn't realized they'd painted a whole room a different color). Granted, the things I've mentioned here don't fall into the category of Stuff That Even Vaguely Interests Men. Still, it makes you wonder how much you could get away with right under their noses. Would he even bat an eye if you made a huge change involving something as man-crucial as sex? And what would his obliviousness mean?

REDBOOK decided to find out, by having seven women, including myself, make some major switcheroos without saying a peep to their husbands. Watch what happened next.

Experiment 1: Become the initiator

Experiment 1: Become the initiator

"It's not that I never initiate sex," says Michelle, 42. "It's just usually only after I've had a few cocktails. I know he won't reject me, but it's out of my comfort zone." Her husband, Bill, has mentioned that he doesn't like being the one who always gets things going, so Michelle decided to go a little Lady Marmalade on him. They'd just walked through the door after running errands one afternoon when, Michelle says, "I gave him a deep kiss. Before I had a chance to do anything else, he took off with it!" So a few nights later, she lost the subtlety. She put on her sexiest underwear and flashed Bill before they went out. "When we got home, I started kissing him and running my hands all over his body." That, and the fact that he'd been panting to get another look at her lingerie all night, led to good things. "He never did say anything about me taking control, but if I keep getting that kind of reaction, I don't really care about the recognition."